“What I am asking the president to do and the Senate Democrats to do is put a plan on the table,” he said on the Sunday public affairs program, produced in conjunction with WisPolitics.com. “Let the American people see what your plans are for closing a trillion dollar a year deficit.”

Johnson, R-Oshkosh, claims in President Obama’s four years as president, he has yet to lay out a plan to “save” Social Security or Medicare and ``misled the American public'' during the campaign by focusing on tax increases for the rich.

Johnson said voters believed the deficit and economic recession would be solved “if all we do is make the rich pay their fair share and produce a balanced approach to deficit reduction,” he said. “The president misled the American public… I don’t believe enough Americans really understand the depth of our fiscal situation and what it will take to solve it.”

Johnson said pro-growth tax reform is the answer and the first step should be extending all current tax rates. “I don’t know of any tax increase that helps grow the economy or create even one job,” he said.

In a web extra, Johnson said he supports Gov. Scott Walker’s decision to not create a state health insurance exchange because the federal government will “dictate” it anyway.

According to Johnson, the Affordable Care Act dramatically increases the demand for healthcare whereas the supply remains the same. “Obamacare is going to be a total disaster,” he said.

-- State Sen. Chris Larson, the new Senate minority leader from Milwaukee, told UpFront an increase in progressive politicians is about a “return to the fundamentals.”

“I think a lot of it has been, to be frank, a reaction to the severe conservative efforts by this Republican governor and by others in Wisconsin and across the country,” Larson said. So we are standing up for our core values and having to be a little bit louder than we normally would be.”

Although Democrats have a minority in the state, Larson said Democrats won't let Republicans “rubber stamp” whatever they want. “If [Republicans] are not going to be the voice for Wisconsin that is going to be our job as Democrats to speak up and point out where they are falling off base,” he said.

-- DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp was also on UPFRONT. Along with regulating Wisconsin resources and environment, Stepp said she thinks “the DNR has a fundamental role to play in job creation in Wisconsin.”

The agency aims to help businesses and individuals navigate all the regulations they may encounter.

“We have organized a team of professionals in the DNR who are very familiar with the permits needed in different types of industries like printing or paper or agri-business, manufacturing of all different sorts, transportation etc. so people have a single point of contact if they need to get questions answered,” she said.

--Wisconsin's new Voter ID law is tied up in court, but Mike Gousha said Republicans might consider doing it through a constitutional amendment.

A Justice Department civil rights investigation has concluded that the Ferguson Police Department and the city's municipal court engaged in a "pattern and practice" of discrimination against African Americans, targeting them disproportionately for tr...